Investing in biodiversity

23 March 2020

Establishment PBAF

On initiative of ASN Bank, the ‘Partnership Biodiversity Accounting Financials’ (PBAF) was recently established. With this knowledge platform, ASN Bank and five other financial institutions (ACTIAM, FMO, Robeco, Triodos Bank en Triple Jump) will focus on impact measurement of investments with a positive effect on biodiversity. CREM and PRé Sustainability will support the platform in this effort. PBAF will look into the different types of investments that can contribute the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and how the impact of these investments can be measured or calculated. Financial institutions can use this knowledge to formulate investments policies that consider biodiversity and to calculate a biodiversity-footprint of their investments.

Roel Nozeman, Senior Advisor Biodiversity ASN Bank: “With the establishment of PBAF the members will share knowledge and experience on biodiversity open source and wish to answer important questions about biodiversity impact measurement.”

Knowledge issues

Questions that will be addressed within PBAF include (among others): Can an investment in a reduction of negative impact be treated as a positive impact? Can a positive impact be attributed to certification standards which are generally regarded as biodiversity-positive (like FSC and MSC), when impact data are still lacking?

Starting point

PBAF will work towards a paper in which a ‘common ground’ with regard to measuring positive effects on biodiversity will be described. This common ground will be tested in a number of cases, like investments in reforestation, agroforestry and landscape restoration. The goal is to complete this work in May 2020. Following this publication, other financial institutions in the Netherlands and abroad will be invited to join this initiative, in order to create a widely accepted and supported methodology.